The Craft of Scientific Presentations

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The Craft of ScientificPresentations
Feynman developed into an accomplished and
inspiring teacher and lecturer, who gave virtuoso
performances full of showmanship, humor, with his
own inimitable brilliance, style, and
manner. Jagdish Mehra
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Because presentations are expensive, one should
consider whether a presentation is truly needed
Cost in salaries of audience
Cost in time for presentation
Cost in time to prepare presentation
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Presentations have several advantages over
documents
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Presentations also have several disadvantages
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Presentations can be viewed from three stylistic
perspectives
Structure and Speech
Visual Aids
Delivery
Archives, Cal-Tech
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You begin preparing a scientific presentation by
analyzing your constraints
audience
to inform to persuade to inspire to teach
formality size time
purpose
occasion
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As with documents, the structure of presentations
should have clear beginnings, middles, and ends
B e g i n n i n g
E n d i n g
Middle
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Beginnings prepare the audiencefor the work to
be presented
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The middle presents the workin a logical order
pre-combustion methods
combustion methods
post-combustion methods
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In the middle, you make smooth transitions
between major points
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The ending summarizes main points and places
those results in the context of the big picture
Big Picture